M2M champions teamed up to create speedy solution during the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games

During the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics, a number of technologies were chosen to be trialled in conjunction with the UK Trade & Investment and the Security Innovation & Technology Consortium. One of those technologies was Over-C, an innovative software application company using NFC handsets for asset tracking and procedural compliance.

Over-C was selected to track the police speed boats operating on the River Thames. It was needed in order to find an effective solution for communication of critical information, and maintaining reliable connectivity was key.

The Metropolitan Police operate alongside Kent and Essex Police Marine Units to patrol and secure the 154.5 km length of the River Thames. Traditional radio-based marine tracking technologies can sometimes struggle to deliver accurate positioning for the fleet of 18 vessels on the river. In addition, the police need to ensure the safety of the officers on- and offboard and to know which officer is deployed on which vessel and their tactical capability.

It was widely known that relying on any one network meant having a single point of failure and the nature of the Games meant that public use of a carrier’s network may well overwhelm that network, resulting in delayed or non-transmitted information.

Mike Elliott, CEO of Over-C, stated, “We knew that we needed to have the ultimate in reliable communications and our first call was to the team at Concirrus.

“With the managed connectivity solution that they provided from Telenor Connexion, we were almost guaranteed to get data out as and when it was needed and because of this our trial was a complete success.”

Andrew Yeoman, CEO of Concirrus, stated, “The Olympic Games is one of the most demanding events that we could have imagined. We’ve all been in situations where you have a signal, but still cannot make a call because the network is overloaded. When dealing with critical information such as this, we knew we only had one viable option - Telenor Connexion.”

Concirrus has entered into a strategic partnership with Telenor Connexion to provide a complete M2M service for its customers.